Job 15:2-4 New English Translation
2 “Does a wise man answer with blustery knowledge,[a]
or fill his belly[b] with the east wind?[c]
3 Does he argue[d] with useless[e] talk,
with words that have no value in them?
4 But you even break off[f] piety,[g]
and hinder[h] meditation[i] before God.
Footnotes
- Job 15:2 tn The Hebrew is דַעַת־רוּחַ (daʿat ruakh). This means knowledge without any content, vain knowledge.
- Job 15:2 tn The image is rather graphic. It is saying that he puffs himself up with the wind and then brings out of his mouth blasts of this wind.
- Job 15:2 tn The word for “east wind,” קָדִים (qadim), is parallel to “spirit/wind” also in Hos 12:2. The east wind is maleficent, but here in the parallelism it is so much hot air.
- Job 15:3 tn The infinitive absolute in this place is functioning either as an explanatory adverb or as a finite verb.sn Eliphaz draws on Job’s claim with this word (cf. Job 13:3), but will declare it hollow.
- Job 15:3 tn The verb סָכַן (sakhan) means “to be useful, profitable.” It is found 5 times in the book with this meaning. The Hiphil of יָעַל (yaʿal) has the same connotation. E. Lipiński offers a new meaning on a second root, “incur danger” or “run risks” with words, but this does not fit the parallelism (FO 21 [1980]: 65-82).
- Job 15:4 tn The word פָּרַר (parar) in the Hiphil means “to annul; to frustrate; to destroy; to break,” and this fits the line quite well. The NEB reflects G. R. Driver’s suggestion of an Arabic cognate meaning “to expel; to banish” (“Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 77).
- Job 15:4 tn Heb “fear, reverence.”
- Job 15:4 tn The word גָּרַע (garaʿ) means “to diminish,” regard as insignificant, occasionally with the sense of “pull down” (Deut 4:2; 13:1). It is here that Eliphaz is portraying Job as a menace to the religion of society because he dissuades people from seeking God.
- Job 15:4 tn The word שִׂיחָה (sikhah) is “complaint; cry; meditation.” Job would be influencing people to challenge God and not to meditate before or pray to him.
New English Translation (NET)
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